West Brom manager Steve Clarke believes his side can dream of European qualification following their 2-1 victory over Chelsea.
The result moved the Baggies up to fourth position in the Premier League, just a single point behind the current European champions.
Clarke believes that his side can now think of qualification for continental competition, but conceded they must work hard to keep up their form:
“At the moment, we are in the right position to think about Europe – but we go from game to game.” He told SkySports.
“That is boring I know, but I think this weekend we’ll let the supporters dream a little bit.
“The team are certainly in a very good moment, but within the camp we’ll keep our feet on the ground.
“I think people have been taking notice of us for quite a few weeks now. We are aware of that, they can take notice if they want, but we work from game to game.”
Since taking the hot-seat at the Hawthorns from Roy Hodgson, Clarke has instilled a more attacking philosophy.
The ex-Liverpool assistant is happy with the results of his style:
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“I wanted to try and make supporters go home happy at the weekend after watching a team who have played attractive football and tried to play football the right way and get positive results.
“We’ll go chasing three points and, if we keep doing what we are doing, it can be a good season for us.
“We closed the gap on Chelsea and managed to put a few more points between some teams that are below us.”
Ten years is a long time in football, but it has been a whirlwind period for Swansea City. As the South Wales club prepare for their Capital One Cup semi-final with Arsenal, few outside of the Swans’ loyal band of supporters will know just how close the club came to disappearing for good not too long ago.
But, here we are, with the white and gold clad team on the verge of reaching a domestic final. If you’d have told any fans in the stands at Vetch Field during their 1-0 defeat to Boston United in 2002, that their team would be competing in the top tier and on the verge of making the League Cup final in just over ten years, you may have seen some confused faces. However, these are the circumstances now faced by the Swans, whose feet have barely had time to touch the ground.
Swansea were staring into the abyss as poor form left the club at the bottom of the Football League during the 2002/03 season. A hat-trick from James Thomas inspired a last day 4-2 victory over Hull, which saved Swansea from relegation, at the expense of Exeter City. From here their climb up the football ladder began.
Brian Flynn guided the team to mid-table safety the next season, but was replaced by Kenny Jackett, who was unable to maintain their push for a play-off spot. However, after drafting in a number of talented defensive players, the now Millwall coach saw his side secure third place with a 1-0 win over Bury and subsequent promotion to League 1.
With their move up to the third-tier of English football, Swansea bid farewell to their home Vetch Field, moving into the council-run Liberty Stadium facility. It looked like being a fairy-tale first season at their new home, as the Swans’ impressive form saw them reach the play-off final, however a penalty shoot-out defeat at the hands of Barnsley ended all hopes of a move to the Championship.
Jackett resigned the following year, and Swansea took a chance on Spanish manager Roberto Martinez, offering him his first senior position. Initially it looked to be an inspired decision, as the club made a real push for a second successive play-off appearance. But, it was not to be, with a 6-3 defeat to Blackpool seeing them narrowly miss out.
Martinez’s methods saw the birth of the Swansea we now see on a weekly basis, with a real focus on maintaining possession and playing football the ‘right’ way. Jackett’s side had played in a moderately attractive style, but the Spaniard’s approach was the catalyst for a change in philosophy. It wasn’t all style over substance either, with his first full season in charge bringing promotion to the Championship and the League 1 winners trophy to the Liberty Stadium.
After guiding the team to mid-table safety in the second tier, Martinez left to take the managerial post at Wigan. Paulo Sousa stepped in to steady the ship, but left after just one season. Despite this, he is still held in high regard for his impact on and off of the pitch.
The dream of promotion was achieved the following year, with Brendan Rodgers guiding the team to a 4-2 play-off final win over Reading, his former club, at Wembley.
Swansea’s appearance in the top flight made them the first Welsh team to appear in the Premier League since its formation in 1992. With memorable wins against the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal the club to achieved a safety in their first season, and also won the hearts of many neutral football fans.
Rodgers left during the summer for the vacant managers position at Liverpool, but once again the team brought in a progressive coach in the shape of Michael Laudrup. The Dane has maintained the core principles of the team and now has the chance to cap their meteoric rise with one of the most coveted trophies in English football, the Capital One Cup.
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The turn of the New Year will see Swansea prepare for their semi-final clash with Chelsea, and although they are underdogs, they have every chance of making a cup final appearance at Wembley.
Even if they fail to lift the trophy, the Swansea story is a miraculous one. One that shows that with the right attitude and a core set of principles anything is possible. From the brink of destruction, the Swans are now on the brink of greatness.
Arsene Wenger has always prioritised the Premier League. Through talking up the team’s ability to finish first (even if he didn’t really believe it himself) to ensuring that come the second half of the season when Arsenal were usually well and truly out of the title race, the objective was on finishing in the top four.
Yet it is extremely backwards to place so much importance in the Champions League. The club need UEFA’s top competition for the revenue it brings in; anything in the way of a deep run in the competition is simply a bonus. But since the move to the Emirates, Wenger has always been handicapped in his ability to field a strong team in Europe and continue to force the club over the line for a top four finish.
It’s baffling when you think about it. The club have been in a seemingly endless cycle of never really pushing on in their hunt for silverware, all the while talking up one of the factors that have handicapped them along the way.
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I don’t think Wenger’s tactical ability in Europe needs to be questioned – at least to any great degree. Two semi-final appearances, one which lead to the final in 2006, isn’t really something you’d expect from a club of Arsenal’s experience in the Champions League, but the manager has never had the resources to go all out.
When the team did make the final in Paris, it came off the back of a real struggle to overtake Tottenham for fourth. The same was true in 2009 when the club were eliminated by Manchester United over two legs. Arsenal had done surprisingly well to get as far as they did that year, but had it not been for the injection of life offered by Andrey Arshavin in the January window, Arsenal would almost certainly have failed to make the following year’s competition.
Sometimes it’s worth comparing Wenger to his managerial contemporaries. Manuel Pellegrini has done a lot with the little he’s had in the past in Spain. Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund, right across the board, were hardly a match for Bayern’s endless supply of resources but made it to the final alongside their domestic rivals. And yet Real Madrid have been failures in Europe up until Jose Mourinho arrived and put matters straight, to a degree. The Portuguese led the club to three consecutive semi-finals when the best they could muster previously was a trip to the last 16.
Arsenal’s failure to really deliver on the European stage is a result of the move to the Emirates. Bar 2006, the only season that Arsenal perhaps should have done more with what they had was 2004. Wenger had been building to a team of that ability and ferocity in domestic competition, yet when they failed to get past Chelsea at the quarterfinal stage, Wenger dismantled that squad with near-frightening pace. The importance should have been in building on that team and transferring their Premier League dominance onto the European stage. By 2006, the spirit of the Invincibles was completely absent. Many of the key figures remained, but as a collective the squad was far from an equal.
A lot of this is the reason why I’ve raised the question about the club missing out on the Champions League for a season at least. The problem is fans are too quick to concern themselves with matters on the financial front. They also want to throw in comparisons relating to Liverpool and their struggles to get back into the mix for the Champions League, all the while completely ignoring clubs like AC Milan, Juventus, Napoli, Lyon, and Bayern, among others, who have missed out on the Champions League but have quickly, in most of their cases, returned.
But then you’d have to question whether Wenger and the Arsenal backroom staff would have the same ingenuity to turn the ship around off the back of a season out of Europe. The scouting department comes into play, resulting, often, in poor acquisitions. Wenger has been rightly criticised for his lack of tactical expertise in the domestic game, let alone in Europe, so that adds to the overall problem too.
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The problem with Arsenal is that you can’t pick one fault and isolate it from the rest. It’s a domino effect that allows one poor decision to fall back on everything else. The club’s lack of incentive to change, or even their inability, has resulted in a vicious cycle and stagnation. This summer is billed as the end to all that and the beginning of something new. But for whatever failures the club have had in the Champions League, they do not solely lie with Wenger’s tactical approach.
Should Arsene Wenger be questioned for his results in Europe?
According to Sky Sports, Liverpool defender Daniel Agger believes that the Liverpool supporters cannot afford to lose faith in the club after suffering their worst start to a Premier League season in half a century.
Defeats away to West Bromwich Albion and at home to Arsenal have left Brendan Rodgers’ side with just a solitary point (picked up against the champions Manchester City) going into the international break.
However, Agger, who was linked with a move to Manchester City in the summer, believes that the players are simply taking their time to adjust to the attractive style of football that manager Rodgers wants them to play: “Nothing is easy to fix- not in football and not in life – but we are working on the manager’s ideas everyday, so hopefully we can get better and better during the course of the season.”
To add to the discontent at Anfield, the Liverpool manager allowed £35 million striker Andy Carroll to leave the club on a season long loan to West Ham United, subsequently leaving the Reds bereft of strikers after failing to replace the 23-year-old.
Agger admits that the lack of squad members at Liverpool isn’t ideal but still remains positive. “We are trying everything we can and we have to get the best out of the squad we have,” he said.
The two frontline strikers Liverpool do have at the club – Fabio Borini and Luis Suarez – have come in for some criticism following their inability to convert some clear-cut chances in their first three Premier League games.
Although Agger argued that the onus should not always be on Borini and Suarez to net Liverpool’s goals this season, he admitted that the chances were there and him and his team mates “all need to start taking them.”
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The fixture generator hasn’t been exactly kind to Rodgers and his Liverpool side at the beginning of this campaign. After the international break the Merseyside club travel to the Stadium of Light to face an improved Sunderland outfit, followed by the visit of fierce rivals Manchester United at Anfield.
It’s time for UEFA to tackle racism properly once and for all and after another ugly incident overshadowed England under 21’s victory in Serbia.
A series of pitiful fines and inept warnings have meant a minority of fans in some nations have got away with metaphoric murder at the expense of innocent footballers. A footballer should be able to step out onto a pitch to do his job without being subjected to racist chants and having missiles launched in his direction. Jordan Henderson said, “There was a lot of racist abuse out there from the stands and a lot going on after the game.
“There were also stones, coins and seats getting thrown at us,” (BBC). This brutal incident of fan trouble is not the first incident involving unruly Serbian fans. In 2007 Serbian fans singled out Nedum Onouha for racial chants during an England under 21 fixture and received a mere £16,000 fine. With this not the first incident involving Serbian troublemakers it is time to send a real message out, ban them. If Serbia are withdrawn from international competition then maybe those who do cause trouble will think twice before next acting in such a vile way, or maybe those who remain silent around them will act more vigilantly in stopping these despicable acts.
UEFA’s punishment of racism has been farcical and now is the time for change, Porto were fined a mere £16,400 for racially abusing Mario Balotelli in a Europa League clash. The same governing body then charged Nicklas Bendtner £80,000 for having Paddy Power written on his boxers. If Serbia were banned from all international fixtures for at least a tournament it would send a strong message across the globe that racism is not tolerated in football. Banning one of Europe’s stronger nation’s from all international competition would send a strong message out to fans from other countries who England have had deal with poisonous chants before. If Serbia are made an example of the minority who have tarnished Bulgaria vs. England and Spain vs. England matches in the past might get the message.
This unfortunate volatile fixture can hopefully act as the catalyst to new tougher regulations from football’s governing body, as enough is enough, this can’t go on.
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Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert has revealed that the club are yet to open talks with striker Christian Benteke over an improved contract.
Benteke still has three years left on his Villa deal after the £7million move from Genk on transfer deadline day last summer.
The Belgian striker has been in phenomenal form for the Premier League strugglers and a number of big clubs from around Europe are said to been keen on snapping him up in the summer.
Lambert has admitted that he will struggle to hold on to his prized asset if the Midlands club are playing Championship football next season but the Scot is hoping it won’t come to that.
Villa won away at Stoke last weekend and have a winnable game at home to Fulham today to pull further clear of the relegation fight and Lambert is not willing to discuss contracts until they’re safe.
“I think the most important thing is the league until the end of the season, I heard somebody say he’s been promised a new contract but I can’t have been a part of those conversations,” Lambert told Sky Sports.
“I speak to him all the time, not about contracts, I just tell him to keep it going really. And he’s never once mentioned anything to me about contracts.
“He’s got a contract here anyway as it stands, but I think it’s important we stay in this league and do as well as we’ve been doing.
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“As I said before I’ve never had one conversation with him regarding contracts or anything like that, he’s not that type of lad. I’m sure come the end of the season we’ll sit down and it’ll be just Chris and a few others.”
It’s been a huge week at Old Trafford, which has left many fans distraught. After Sir Alex Ferguson announced he would retire at the end of the season, United supporters were already in a fragile mood. But the news that Wayne Rooney has asked to leave the club has hurt fans once more. These stories do sound familiar though. In 2002, Ferguson was set to retire, only to change his mind late on, whilst Rooney requested to leave the club in 2010 before eventually signing a 5-year contract.
But it seems this time it’s for real. Sir Alex really is going to leave, whilst Rooney looks intent on departing Manchester. After being forced to play out of position for the end of season run-in, it appears the English striker has become fed up at Old Trafford, and wants a fresh challenge. With Robin van Persie becoming the club’s main striker this season, Wayne hasn’t been able to handle not being number 1.
With the news that Sir Alex is to retire from management at the end of the season, it seems Rooney doesn’t even want to wait to speak to the new manager about his future. Unless he shocks the footballing world, it appears Everton manager David Moyes will become the new man to manage the Premier League champions. But Rooney looks intent on leaving even if his former boss comes to the club, without hearing Moyes’ plans for the striker, or for the team.
So what about the rest of the Old Trafford squad? With the only player to play under Moyes desperate to leave, it doesn’t paint a good picture about the Everton manager. And with players in the dressing room such as Anderson and Nani who are also reportedly unhappy with their involvement at the club, they too may be thinking of leaving after Rooney’s clear intentions. So before Moyes arrives at the club, he could well find a queue outside his door of players asking to leave the club.
Ideally, Moyes would come into the club with Rooney spending the last few weeks of the season speaking gold about the Scotsman, and talking about how much he is looking forward to being reunited with his first manager at senior level. But instead, it looks like these next two weeks will all about Rooney possibly playing his last games for the club, and causing doubt amongst other players about whether they too should leave with Sir Alex.
Although Rooney reportedly talked about wanting to leave before Sir Alex announced his retirement, the fact he’s formally asked to leave after the legendary manager told the world about his intentions, shows a lack of faith in any new manager, especially his former one. The timing of Rooney’s decision shows an absence of belief in Moyes, who has been the odds-on favourite for the job ever since Ferguson decided to retire. Rooney’s desire to leave will damage Moyes’ reputation in the United dressing room, and could well lead to a few more players publicly requesting transfers.
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Some people may be sceptical about Manchester United’s motives in signing Shinji Kagawa, but one thing the Japanese superstar is certain to bring (apart from shirt sales) is a bit more glamour.
Shinji Kagawa’s girlfiend is adult entertainment sensation Ameri Ichinose, and there’s no doubt that she’d provide something a bit different to the Old Trafford players and families lounge alongside the likes of Coleen Rooney.
He’s been in Europe for just two years, having signed for Borussia Dortmund from Cerezo Osaka in 2010, but it was only after finding fame with his dazzling Bundesliga displays that he became romantically involved with gorgeous Ichinose, who has also worked under the names Ayaka Misora and Erika Kurisu.
Sir Alex Ferguson will be hoping that Kagawa doesn’t get too distracted from his game – or worse, injured – by his lady’s more adventurous desires. According to the Daily Star Sunday the 24-year-old Kanagawa-born babe is very open about her love for sex – “the nastier the better”. We’ll, erm, let you do your own research into that…
Click on the lucky Shinji Kagawa to see the full gallery
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Tottenham Hotspur paid Roma a hefty £25.8 Million fee for Erik Lamela last year after the promising 22 year old Argentinian winger made a lot of waves in his career with two impressive seasons in Italy.
Having spent his youth at Argentinian side River plate he went on to attract a lot of attention from the European media after scoring a bag full of goals for the youth team in 2004 as a 12 year old. He created similar waves in Europe to his compatriot Lionel Messi who went on to play for Barcelona and has become the best player in the world.
He made his senior début in June 2009 and went on to score four goals in thirty-seven appearances for the first-team before making a move to Italian side Roma, where he spent another two seasons and scored nineteen goals in sixty-two appearances. He caught the eye of many clubs and continued to show a lot of promise as a youngster not only for his club but at international level; to date his has made seven appearances for his country and has an international senior goal to his name already. He had a fantastic spell in Rome earning himself a five year contract with them and playing some top class football which saw him create and score some vital goals in very important games for the Italian side.
Lamela, best known for his sublime dribbling and passing ability, looked like he would be a great addition for any top team and eventually found his way to Tottenham, who paid quite a large but justified price tag for the whiz kid who himself said he wanted to follow in Maradona’s footsteps. After add-ons he became (at the time) the most expensive player in the club’s history, breaking records which had been set earlier in the same transfer window by Paulinho and Soldado – it was a famously expensive summer for the North London side who spent a whopping £100 Million on players and completely revamped their squad. Erik went on to make his debut for Spurs as a 75th minute substitute against Arsenal who beat his new side on the day in a one nil victory then went on to register his first start for the side in the Europa League and got his first assist, providing a goal for Jermain Defoe in a three nil victory over Tromso IL at White Hart Lane. Early signs showed a lot of promise for the youngster and it looked like he would slot in well and continue impressing with his football for his new club, but that never seemed to fall into place for him with Villas-Boas not giving him a Premier League start and saying that the player would have to compete for his place in the starting line up and wasn’t producing half of what he was capable of producing. Even under care taker boss Tim Sherwood, the player couldn’t really find a consistent starting place in the team making the odd start here and there before a back injury terminated his season early.
The player didn’t live up to his price tag in his first season with Tottenham, and it must have been a frustrating period in the youngster’s career in England, not just for him but for the fans as well who would have expected big things from someone who carried such a hefty price tag.
This season however, he is under yet another new manager with Pochettino and he looks to have fitted in perfectly to his new manager’s team and plans, with his first start of the season coming as early as the first game of the season against West Ham before appearing off the bench against AEL away, providing assists for Soldado and Harry Kane and two further assists in the following game where his side demolished Premiership new boys QPR.
He finally looks like he is justifying his big transfer fee, and I think that under his new manager he is going to keep on shining and improving game by game. The gaffer has already stated that he will be giving the player his chance to prove what quality he possesses and he wants his whole team to play exciting football, saying this in a recent interview : “For me, it is about exciting football, pressing high, playing with flair – this is our philosophy that we want to get down. We want to put all these things in place.” And it seems that Lamela is the perfect candidate to bring that sort of football to the table, as he has been known for it so far in his career wherever he has played and early signs so far this season show a lot of promising times lay ahead for him and his club.
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I think that Spurs fans will be very pleased with what they have got with Lamela and will enjoy seeing him perform on the pitch. His contribution this season will certainly be a vast improvement on last season’s and he could well help the team to find the back of the net and get the goals that count in aiming for that golden fourth place finish in May.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger believes his are becoming genuine title contenders following an impressive 1-1 draw away at Manchester City yesterday, according to The Sun.
The Gunners maintained their unbeaten start to the campaign with a hard-fought point at the Etihad thanks to an 82nd minute equaliser by Frenchman Laurent Koscielny.
Wenger reckons that yesterday’s result can give the players hope that they can compete with the league’s elite, “We believe it but it’s down to consistency. What happened here should strengthen our belief. “
However, the Arsenal boss accepts that there is a lot of work still to be done if his side are to take the title of Manchester City this season, “We are not the perfect team yet, we have room for improvement. If we focus on that, we have a chance.”
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Arsenal have surprised most critics with an impressive brand of football this season despite the departures of Robin van Persie to Manchester United and Alex Song to Barcelona – two players who were so instrumental for the north London club last season. Wenger believes that the draw at City should spur them on and make them realise their credentials, “Overall I hope the game reassured us about our potential in this league.”